Chris Donnelly argues SEO isn't dead: Google still handles 13-14 billion searches daily, and over 50% now show AI-generated overviews. He outlines a framework to capture the $100 million revenue opportunity by optimizing for AI-driven search across platforms like ChatGPT and Google.
Is SEO dead? And why did 90% of founders and marketers say that AEO was the biggest revenue opportunity in 2026? I've identified 4 steps that will take you from a complete beginner to being able to drive revenue from AI. So let's start with a reality check. Most self-titled SEO gurus are screaming that Google is dead and that you need to abandon everything and focus only on AI search. And although ChatGPT is the fastest consumer adoption of technology ever, if you look at this data from SparkToro, Google is handling 13 to 14 billion searches every single day. If you look at OpenAI's own data, the majority of their queries are things like, "Reformat this email," "How do I respond to this?" And the truth is, right now, people are sticking with what they know, Google. So Google isn't dead, but the tides are beginning to shift. And the point that most marketers or founders are overlooking is that Google itself has now pivoted. More than 50% of searches end with AI overviews, and this behavioral change is going quietly unnoticed as more and more people want their answers to be served conversationally, not just in keywords. So when 7 billion of Google searches end with AI overviews, That is a $100 million opportunity for your business that you are missing. The good news is, is that AEO and GEO are just an additional layer that you need to add to your existing SEO strategy, and that all the tactics apply across ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, and Google's own AI Overviews. All of these are technically now powered by large language models. And so how do you get your business to be recommended at a specific time that your customer is looking for your product?
